The crew of DS9 eagerly await Commander Sisko's return from Earth while discussing the threat of the Dominion. Kira announces that no simulation has them surviving more than two hours against an assault. Even worse, they're all surprised by a ship decloaking right outside their shields. But it turns out that this ship is... a Starfleet vessel? Sisko hails them, revealing that this mysterious ship, the Defiant, will be their new weapon against the Dominion.
In a staff conference, Sisko explains that the Defiant is a prototype designed to fight the Borg. It's the first of a planned fleet of specially designed warships that would be nothing more than weapons platforms with warp engines. Due to the lowered Borg threat, the project was mothballed, but now it's back to fight the new enemy. Chief O'Brien is tasked with tackling the ship's nagging reliability issues. Its cloaking device is on loan from the Romulans on the conditions that it only be used in the Gamma Quadrant (aside from the test-run when arriving at the station) and only by a Romulan officer. In exchange, Starfleet will share all intelligence they gather on the Dominion.
The ship's first mission is to track down the homeworld of the Dominion's mysterious Founders and hopefully work out some sort of peaceful solution to their feud. Joining the crew for this mission is Subcommander T'Rul, the Romulan cloaking expert. Sisko also introduces Lt. Commander Michael Eddington, a new Starfleet security officer. Odo instantly realizes that he's being replaced as chief of security on the station and prepares to resign rather than submit to Starfleet oversight. Kira meets with Odo in private and tells him the Bajoran government has requested his presence on the mission, a claim Odo doesn't exactly believe, but Kira convinces him to participate anyway, since this would be a good opportunity to see if they can find more clues about his people. In the meantime, Sisko orders Quark to join the mission as well at the request of Grand Nagus Zek, due to Quark's experience negotiating with members of the Dominion. As the ship prepares to leave, Odo arrives to join up, but is less than thrilled to be stuck sharing quarters with Quark.
The Defiant warps through the Gamma quadrant while cloaked and comes across three Jem'Hadar warships. They pick up traces of the Defiant, forcing the ship to drop out of warp and cut power as the warships scan the area with anti-proton fields. That seems to do the trick, and they proceed to the Karemma homeworld, where Quark makes inquiries about the Founders. The Karemman minister reveals that all contact with Dominion leadership is handled through a race called the Vorta, and he's reluctant to help them further. Sisko points out that not helping them could threaten the Karemma's trade alliance with the Ferengi, which could potentially upset the Founders, so the minister directs them to an unmanned relay station in the Callinon system. While studying the star chart, Odo is drawn to the Omarion Nebula, which is somehow familiar to him. Having fulfilled his duty to Sisko, Quark opts to stay behind to continue trade relations with the Karemma.
The Defiant reaches the relay station, but the crew finds it's a trap; Dax and O'Brien are stranded, and the ship is forced to evade the Jem'Hadar again, barely escaping. Odo in the meantime, confesses his need to seek out the Omarion Nebula, but for the moment, the mission comes first. The ship comes under fire as the Jem'Hadar have penetrated the cloak, and the Defiant is battered and boarded. Kira is knocked out, but Odo is able to rescue her and escape in a shuttlepod. When she comes to, she is chagrined to find that Odo is heading to the nebula instead of the wormhole, but it's too late to complain.
Inside the nebula, they land on a rogue planet mostly covered by a familiar-looking fluid. Several humanoid forms who take on an appearance similar to Odo's emerge from the amber ocean. One of these Changelings, taking a female shape, addresses Odo: "Welcome home."
Tropes
- Abandon Ship: Sisko calls for this, but he and his crew are captured before they can escape. Only Odo and Kira make it off the Defiant.
- Attack Pattern Alpha: Evasive Pattern Delta-5.
- Character Development: The station is definitely starting to grow on Sisko, as he gets his personal effects from storage and brings them to the station. The late Michael Piller stated this was the point in the show's run where they'd finally nailed down the core essence of Sisko's character: That he's a builder, staying with projects and seeing them through. This is reflected in Jadzia's Wardroom conversation and recounting Curzon's thoughts on Sisko's career.Piller: It was harder to define Sisko as a character than perhaps any of the others, and ultimately it took us probably a season and a half to reach the conclusion that Sisko was a builder, a man who built things, stayed with projects, as opposed to the driver, the captain of a starship who went off and moved from place to place.
- Continuity Nod:
- The USS Defiant is named for the ship of the same name in the TOS episode "The Tholian Web". That earlier Defiant would go on to reappear in the Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly".
- When explaining Starfleet's decision to appoint Eddington to oversee the Station's Starfleet Security, Sisko cites recent security breaches (i.e. "The Maquis, Part 1"). Odo likewise repeats his frustrations with Starfleet's security protocols from that episode.
- Continuity Overlap: Loose example with Star Trek Generations (which was then less than two months away from its release at the time of this Season's Premiere) The original TNG combadges have been retired following the events of "The Jem'Hadar". Beginning here and for the remainder of the show's run, the crew now sports the updated combadges that were designed for the first TNG film.
- Cool Ship: The Defiant gets introduced as a way to give the crew more interesting opportunities in space combat rather than constantly fielding a couple runabouts. To bend to Star Trek's nonviolent tradition, the episode spends a lot of time going over all the drawbacks the ship suffers from to make it a kickass fighter.
- Crazy-Prepared: Sisko wanted Quark's help contacting the Founders, but knowing he didn't have any legal authority to force Quark to comply by Federation laws, he instead went to Grand Nagus Zek, who does have the legal authority.
- Curbstomp Battle: Once again, the Jem'Hadar have Starfleet's number when it comes to combat. Unlike the previous episode, however, where the USS Odyssey got completely obliterated without so much as scratching any of the Jem'Hadar ships, the Defiant at least manages to destroy one Jem'Hadar ship before being disabled.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Odo gets a new uniform, based on Mirror Odo's outfit from "Crossover." It includes a belt that he would only wear for the next five episodes.
- Sisko, Bashir, and Kira get shot by the Jem'Hadar's weapons. Later seasons would show that the Dominion's weapons do not have a stun setting. This could retroactively be explained by the events of the next episode; the Founders needed Starfleet captives to interrogate and test in order to determine how the Dominion was going to handle the Federation problem.
- The Defiant's bridge has a grey panel at eye level at each side station, meaning each crewmember has to crane their head in order to see those upper screens while sitting down. Later depictions of the Defiant's bridge has more computer screens that replaces the grey panels (indicating some kind of post-battle upgrade). This can also be justified, as this is a prototype that just came out of mothballs. It makes sense Sisko (as its designer) and O'Brien (as the Station's Chief Engineer) would take note of what went right and wrong and tinker (no with the ship
- Explosive Instrumentation: Damn near every console on the Defiant blows up during the battle, one of which takes out the Disposable Pilot.
- Flawed Prototype: The Defiant, a prototype for a completely new ship class that got mothballed before all the design flaws were fixed. She nearly flies herself apart because her engines are too powerful, her medical facilities are inadequate by Bashir's standards, and to top it all off, her replicators apparently suck.
- Godzilla Threshold:
- The Borg were such a threat that Starfleet started work on a new type of ship that was designed for combat and nothing else.
- The Federation takes the Dominion threat seriously enough to do a deal with the Romulans, acquiring a cloaking device for the Defiant at the price of having a Romulan observer on board.
- Got Volunteered: After the events of the last episode, Quark has no interest in returning to the Gamma Quadrant. Unfortunately, Sisko and the Grand Nagus don't give him that option.
- Gunboat Diplomacy: The Defiant's mission in a nutshell. Make peaceful contact with the mysterious Founders of the Dominion...in a heavily armed prototype Starfleet warship. As Sisko puts it;Sisko: She may have flaws, but she has teeth. And I want the Dominion to know that we can and will defend ourselves if necessary.
- Hidden Depths: After declaring the helmsman deceased, Doctor Bashir takes the helm of the Defiant, is able to fire phasers to destroy a Jem'Hadar ship, evaluate the maneuvers of enemy vessels, and knows exactly what Evasive Pattern Delta-5 is when ordered by Sisko to maneuver the ship to try to throw off the enemy until warp power can be restored, despite being primarily trained as a Starfleet doctor.
- I'm Not Here to Make Friends: T'Rul. Eddington, on the other hand, wants to make friends.
- Insistent Terminology: Officially, the Defiant is classified as an Escort ship, but everyone involved with the project knew they were building a Warship. It goes against Starfleet principles of exploration-first, weapons second but the Borg encounter made them rethink things.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Odo is annoyed at not being informed of other security details on the station being set up, from T'Rul protecting the classified cloaking device to Michael Eddington from Starfleet Security.
- Mid-Season Upgrade: After the Galaxy-class Odyssey was destroyed, Sisko knew they needed something to make the Dominion second-guess another attack, and after only having the long-range Runabout shuttles the Defiant was meant to send a message.
- No One Gets Left Behind: A rare aversion when Sisko is forced to abandon Dax and O'Brien when they're captured by the Jem'Hadar.
- Permission to Speak Freely: Kira, before asking Sisko what the hell Starfleet is thinking by bringing in a new security chief. Sisko agrees with her, but admits that the admirals have valid reasons for not liking Odo.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Barring some science vessels, the Defiant is the smallest and most compact Starfleet ship design for its time period, but her pulse phasers are a flyswatter to a Dominion warship, three of which destroyed the Galaxy-class Odyssey. Later ship designs would provide the same armament and combat-centered tech the Defiant first fielded in a larger package, but pound for pound the class remained quite robust.
- A Rotten Time to Revert: Odo and Quark are given shared quarters aboard the Defiant during the mission to make contact with the Founders. Unfortunately, this occurs right when Odo needs to revert to his liquid form, so he's in an extremely bad mood (not helped by everything else that's been happening in the episode), and Quark's habit of pestering him does not help - even delaying Odo from reverting so they can continue their conversation. All this prompts Odo to explode with rage and order his bunkmate to leave him the hell alone. Only once he's absolutely certain that Quark has his back to him does he finally pour himself into his bucket.
- See the Invisible: The Jem'Hadar figure out how to spot the Defiant through her Invisibility Cloak and launch a surprise attack.
- Skewed Priorities: Quark suggests Rom accompany Sisko on the mission instead. After all, he just has a son. Quark has a business.
- Staff of Authority: Sisko produces the Sceptre of the Grand Nagus to convince Quark to come on the mission. He even makes Quark kiss the Sceptre just to troll him.
- Super Prototype: The Defiant was designed to fight the Borg and Starfleet removed all basic comforts in order to pack it with high performance engine, weapons and armor. The initial construction made it a Flawed Prototype, but within a year would prove itself to be a shockingly fast hit-and-run gunship.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A few times in this episode;
- Starfleet Command assigned Eddington to the station to look after Starfleet security issues as a result of Odo thumbing his nose at Starfleet rules, regulations and even laws since the start of the series. He alludes that this is just racism but Sisko notes that Starfleet likes team players - and so does he for that matter - and Odo always plays by his own rules in a subtle call forward to reveals in Part II.
- The Defiant is a Super Prototype ... which is only half finished and has flaws that will not be rectified for some time. She is however protected by an invisibility cloak ... which is untested against Dominion sensors. Both these facts will result in an unsurprising outcome when she is ambushed by the Jem'Hadar.
- Taking a Third Option: This trope is directly quoted by Kira after the senior staff (minus Sisko) has run many simulations and found that the station will be overrun by the Dominion very quickly in the event of a full-scale assault. Dax says that that leaves them with two options— abandon the station and make their stand on Bajor, or collapse the entrance to the wormhole. Kira says, "I want a third option" and almost at that very moment, the third option appears in the form of the new USS Defiant.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Odo is much crankier and meaner than his usual self because he's been effectively demoted from his position as head of station security, which he attributes to discrimination.
- Wham Line: "Welcome home."
- Wham Shot: The Defiant decloaking.O'Brien: A Federation ship...with a cloaking device?
- What a Piece of Junk: The Defiant. Everyone is utterly unimpressed by her med-bay, crew quarters, replicators and other luxuries. This is before she gets to show off her weapons systems.
- The Worf Effect: Even the new Super Prototype USS Defiant is still not enough against the Dominion! Somewhat justified, as this was her first outing, and Chief O'Brien has a long ways to go to fix all the problems on board. And to top it all off, the Romulan-provided cloaking device wasn't as foolproof against Dominion sensors as hoped and the Jem'Hadar got a sucker punch against her while she was sitting with shields down that disabled their warp drive and caused major damage.
